All the answers are right in the back!

I think there is an interesting human puzzle when I think about books of crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles.  For a while, I thought only I felt there was an interesting twist to the books.  But then, in a re-run of Cheers (4 and 4:30 CDT on Chicago's WGN channel), Woody, the young bartender from Hanover, Indiana, made a comment along the lines I have been thinking about.  He hadn't done many crossword puzzles but looked at a book of them that a customer had been using.  He said that the puzzles looked quite difficult.  Then, he noticed that all the answers were printed in the back of the book and happily exclaimed that it would quite easy to complete one.

That is sort of the puzzle, for me.  I realize how the answers are meant to be used, for checking to see if I have filled in the puzzle "correctly".  Sometimes, a puzzler takes a little, tiny, limited, quick peek for an assist with something especially far out and difficult.  I know the challenge is to fill in the diagram with mind power only.  I see that it is indeed possible to copy the answers from the back and fill it in using no imagination but just vision and finger power. Most people who do puzzles seem to work near the mind-power-only end but they could slide to the other end.  I imagine that most fans of the puzzles would find copying all the answers to even one puzzle a burden and silly.  

For educators and trainers, the question arises often: What do we really want students and trainees to be able to do? When can we feel they have learned or achieved or acquired what we are responsible for them to learn?  How many peeks at the answers are allowed before failure, a grade of D, a required repeat of the training?  What about the student who says the answers are right there and it is a waste of time and effort to learn them?  Some thinkers about children's math learning are convinced that making the kids learn the multiplication table by rote is a waste of time.  Modern computers, spreadsheets and cash registers can do the figures more accurately and faster than any child, any human.  Tougher thinkers ask about times when there is no machine available or no electricity.  The first group counters that the store won't be able to function and the office will be closed, then.  

See the puzzle?

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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety